Plans were made for a hiking trip up to Great Gable from Seathwaite on Sunday 10th March, up on arrival to the car park, the weather was not playing ball, bitterly cold winds and snow was starting to fall. We had prepared for inclement weather so after a review, we decided to get started.
Our planned route was to follow Sourmilk Gill up the Seathwaite Slabs, skirt around the base of Hanging Stone and Base Brown, up to Windy Gap and over to Great Gable, returning down Raven Crag, past Styhead Tarn and returning to Seathwaite down Styhead Gill.
However once we ascended Seathwaite Slabs we were confronted with deep snow and strong headwinds which were creating blizzard like conditions.
We battled on until we reached Mitchell Cove when we had a re-assessment of the conditions and where we were, with reducing visibility, increasing winds and increasing snow fall, the conditions were deteriating.
We decided to re-trace our route back down to Seathwaite rather than continue up to Great Gable, with the snow now over 300mm deep and the wind increasing, this was the correct decision.
The conditions dictated a lack of photography opportunities, but I took these images off my phone.
We arrived back at the car some three hours after we started out, this made us realise how slow our progress had been, as we had planned to complete the full route in around 3.5 hours.
Several cups of warm coffee and some food soon warmed us up, a quick change out of our wet clothing and homeward bound we were.
What an experience, testing conditions, but an enjoyable day out all the same.
